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LG Arena may as well be the best phone released in 2009 by LG Cell Phones. This phone is the flagship of the LG touchscreen phones with their new S-class user interface.

What makes the LG Arena Special among other things is its brilliant S-Class user interface (UI) which LG designed specially for this phone. The S-Class UI promises fluidity that has never been experienced before in any of LG’s previous touch screen phones. One might even say that the Arena may be the only phone that can compare with the excellently smooth and super responsive UI of the iphone. The iphone has always been set as a standard for comparison of touch screen phones and it looks like the arena may finally be able to compete with the iphone. With the S-Class the user gets a cube interface, the screen contains a 3D cube that you can turn around to reveal one of 4 sides: contacts, widgets, shortcuts and a customizable home screen.

When it comes to memory LG Arena comes with an internal 8 GB of memory which can be expanded to 40GB via the microSD card slot. This even exceeds the capacity of iphone or any other multimedia phone.

Another thing one notices after turning on the phone is the WVGA resolution i.e. a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels which is extremely impressive for a 3 inch screen. The LG Arena also comes equipped with an accelerometer for screen auto rotate and the much loved multi-touch input.

Some of the features of the LG Arena are:

* 3″ screen with a WVGA resolution.
* Quad-Band Support.
* 3G.
* Wi-Fi and GPS.
* 8GB internal memory.
* 3D hardware accelerator.
* DiVX and XViD support.
* Mobile Dolby sound system.

While some of the more noticeable disadvantages of this phone are:

* Poor visibility in sunlight.
* Cannot record in DiVX format.
* Maximum email attachment size is 1 MB.
* Has an LED flash whereas such a camera should have come with either a strobe or xenon flash.

Design:

Unlike the other phones I have reviewed here, this phone does not have any form of hardware keys on the front panel. The three hardware buttons that we have seen on the cookie, viewty and renoir are not present in this model. Instead these keys are in the form of touch sensitive buttons and are present on the massive screen itself. These touch sensitive buttons are the “call” key, the “call end” key and the “multitasking/shortcut” key. Above these keys we have the massive 3 inch touch screen. The most beautiful thing about this screen is its massive resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. Such a high resolution on a 3 inch screen results in more pixels per inch than any directly competing handset can offer. Above the screen we have the earpiece along with the VGA video call camera. And thats all there is on the front of the phone.

On the left side of LG KM 900 Arena we have the USB port. The port is hidden under a nice sliding lid, the same one as was in the Viewty. The lid is a nice addition and prevents the port from getting filled with dust and dirt. It is sad that LG are still using their own proprietary cables and ports in their phones. It would have been nice to see a microUSB or miniUSB port on this phone. On the right side of the phone we have the volume rocker keys and the camera shutter key. At first these buttons appear too thin and a pain to use but one eventually gets used to them.

The bottom of the LG Arena is completely clean and has no ports or buttons. On the top of the phone we have the 3.5mm standard audio jack (A welcome addition :) ), the power key and the back panel release button.

The back side of the phone holds a 5 mega pixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach optics and the LED flash. For such a camera LG should not have installed an LED flash but instead should have gone with either a strobe or xenon flash. On the back of the phone you will also find a second microphone pinhole. This separate microphone is used for recording sounds during video capture. I’d also like to add that the back panel of the Arena looks pretty much like the first generation iphone.

Camera:

The LG Arena comes with a 5 mega pixel camera and has Schneider-Kreuznach optics. It comes with an LED flash and no lens protector to protect the lens from scratches. The 5 mega pixel camera is fairly decent and I’m sure that most users will be pretty happy with it. The camera can take photos in a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels and as I mentioned before the picture quality is very good.

In this phone we have an LED flash. This is a major disappointment. The LED flash is no longer considered a flash but is more useful as a torch or flash light. Like I already said before, for such a camera they should have added a strobe or Xenon flash.

The video camera is very good as well. Though its still not good as the video results of the Viewty. The arena can capture video up to D1 (720×480) resolution at 30 fps and the results are pretty nice. One more disappointment here is that the videos are saved in .3GP format which is an outdated video format. The files should have been saved as .AVI with DiVX encoding. The Viewty and Renoir are capable of recording in DiVX. The device can also capture slow motion clips at QVGA resolution and at 120 fps.

Specifications:

Display: TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, 480 x 800 pixels, 3.0 inches.

Network: 2G Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900. 3G Network: HSDPA 2100.

Battery: Standard battery, Li-Ion 1000 mAh.

Size: 105.9 x 55.3 x 12 mm . Weight: 105 g.

Camera: 5 MP, 2592?1944 pixels, Schneider-Kreuznach optics, autofocus, LED flash; secondary VGA videocall camera.

Features: SMS (threaded view), EMS, MMS, Email, WAP 2.0/xHTML, pre-installed and download able Games, FM radio; FM transmitter, GPS.

Connectivity: GPRS: Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 – 48 kbps, EDGE: Class 10, 236.8 kbps, 3G: HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps, Bluetooth: v2.0 with A2DP, USB: 2.0, WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Memory: Internal Memory of 8GB, MicroSD card slot supporting up to 32 GB card.